All you need to know about the World Cup Draw

The who, what and when of next week's World Cup Draw

Not much longer to wait to find out who we'll be playing at next year's World Cup with the Draw to take place next Friday at the Kremlin Palace in Moscow (the early hours of Saturday morning Australian time), co-hosted by none other than Gary Lineker and a local TV personality, Maria Komandnaya.

Other football stars taking part include Miroslav Klose, Laurent Blanc, Cafu, Diego Forlan and the ubiquituous Fabio Cannavaro (who, it must be said, seems to turn-up at the opening of an envelope when it comes to FIFA events).

What is the format of the draw?

The 32 teams are split into four pots, with Russia and the seven highest-ranked nations in pot one, and the lowest-ranked teams in pot four. The rankings that apply are those from October, not the recently announced rankings that saw Australia improve its position to 39th in the world.

Each group will have one team from each pot, but there are restrictions in terms of teams from the same confederations. There can be no more than two European nations in any group, and there may only be a single country from each of the other confederations.